The gymnastics thread

It looks like gymnastics is taking the same approach to scoring as figure skating. It doesn't matter if you fall on your back on the dismount, fall off the balance beam or the uneven bars, or land out of bounds on the floor exercise -- as long as your routine has a lot of difficulty you will get a big score.

Bela Kaorolyi was just interviewed by Bob Costas and he said that the new scoring system was just a smoke screen to cover up cheating and bias on the part of the judges.

I don't really know much about gymnastics, although I heard the commentator said the code of points has been critisized for decreasing the amount of artistry. (Although I'm not sure what artistry is or what it looks like in gymnastics). So if someone who knows about gymnastics can also explain that to me.

It was kind of an eye-opener to me. I saw scores like 14.86 appear on the screen and I had no notion of what any of it meant. The commentators were not really helpful.

Yes, I could devote a few hundred hours to learning the scoring system, as I have in the case of figure skating. But I am not going to. Instead, I will just gradually lose interest in a sport that I found quite exciting back in the days when Olga Korbet and Nadia Commanici were going for a perfect ten.

I think that for both sports the new scoring systems are fine for the athletes and enthusiasts, bad for casual veiwers. When the audience can't tell who performed well and who performed poorly until the protocols come out, this just kills the whole notion of a spectator sport.

according to teh commentators you can still go for the perfect 10... but just in half the score...

With gymnastics it's a little easier, I think, because you can tell when a girl steps out, falls, or loses her balance... or when she just isn't doing as much difficulty

with figure skating you have SO MUCH in the way of moves in the field and "artistry" that it is much more subjective... at least that's my casual viewer of both (I can't tell you have of what skaters are doing or being judged on, much less how it works, so I guess I cound as the casual viewer IN THIS CASE) look at the sport

Well, they should definitely deduct more points for falling off the apparatus or for landing on your butt during the dismount. Degree of difficulty seemed to heavily outweigh cleanliness.

I don't mind the splitting up of the scores. A lot of the judged sports have some degree of difficulty score and some execution score. They just need to posts the scores, like they do with diving. Secret judging is so off-putting in a sports event.

I liked that they left the option of a perfect score in the equivalent of the PCS--I think NBC should highlight that score a little better for the casual viewer, though, since that's the easiest thing to relate to.

I like that they show the scheduled difficulty mark because that's how it's easy to know who is doing something really difficult and who is not.

^^^
Ditto. But, I was always under the impression that Tumbling was to inlude dancing (for the ladies). The Chinese, imo, did not dance but concentrated on the tricks. The Russians did indeed dance their Tumbling tricks.

I think it's a good idea to go with COP for gymnastics but they should show the complete break down and have the networks spend some time explaining how it works showing a few moves telling people what it is worth and what gets a deduction and how much each type of deduction is worth. They should also put links up like CBC here in Canada does that show the information on their network websites. Then the casual audience will start to clue in.

As for the competitor, they now have a tool to craft their routines to get the highest possible mark they can personally achieve. And the competitor can track their success now just like we skaters who get marked with CPC, IJS and/or COP do. The competitor is no longer in the dark with what the judges thought of their routines.

The gymnastics thread

I do agree that the Chinese have little dancing in their floor routines. They seem to concentrate on tricks for these little girls. I wonder if this is because the Chinese seem much younger and immature than the gymnasts from other countries. A couple of those Chinese girls appear to be no more than 12 years old. I do believe that it is valid to suspect there has been some cheating in that area. No way to prove it.

Dizzy I agree about the age of the Chinese ladies team. I couldn't believe it when the NBC commentator said that the girls had to be 16 years old to compete. How can they get away with that? It is so obvious most of those girls are under the required age.

A couple of those Chinese girls appear to be no more than 12 years old. I do believe that it is valid to suspect there has been some cheating in that area. No way to prove it.

I thought the same thing, and the commentators mentioned it, too.

What struck me, however, is this. Evidently these 12-year-olds are better at gymnastics than the 17-year-olds that they beat out for a position on the team. Is it really true that 12-year-olds can do these tricks better than older teens? If so, then maybe we should just admit it and remove the age restriction altogether.

Originally Posted by singerskates

They should also put links up like CBC here in Canada does that show the information on their network websites. Then the casual audience will start to clue in.

The casual audience could go to these sites and start to clue in, but what I am afraid of is that instead they will just change channels when gymnastics comes on.

My concern, especially with figure skating, is that the powers that be are allowing the sport to contract to a small circle of insiders -- athletes, coaches, officials of national federations and a few thousand Internet enthusiasts like us.

Yes, a few of those juniors looked to be Bingwa Geng's age and younger than Caroline.

I think that the older US ladies are better than the younger Chinese ladies, but injuries are a factor. Rather than avoiding injuries, how quickly one can heal from injuries seems to be too important. I do think that the younger Chinese ladies will get better the next few years. At least I hope so rather than that they're bodies have become stunted. The Chinese men don't have an under-age problem.

Well, they should definitely deduct more points for falling off the apparatus or for landing on your butt during the dismount. Degree of difficulty seemed to heavily outweigh cleanliness.

I don't mind the splitting up of the scores. A lot of the judged sports have some degree of difficulty score and some execution score. They just need to posts the scores, like they do with diving. Secret judging is so off-putting in a sports event.

A fall is .8 deduction (Im pretty sure) In gymnastics that is a huge hit depending on what the start value was. Thank goodness nastia had a rediculous start value for bars.?17 The rest of her routine was so perfect she was able to make the final. I have never seen her fall on her dismount in competition. She even has "artistry" on bars. Check out her perfectly straight body and her toes.